


Annabeth Chase Is Not a Hero

by bizzybee



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Anxiety, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, One scene Pre-Canon, The Rest Take Place throughout the OG Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:47:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23881795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bizzybee/pseuds/bizzybee
Summary: Annabeth Chase is not a hero. She cannot make the decisions that heroes make. She has weaknesses that heroes do not. Quests and failed quests and friends dead and friends forgotten all lend themselves to the same conclusion.
Kudos: 19





	Annabeth Chase Is Not a Hero

**Author's Note:**

> For Imani, love you thanks for being such a good friend!!

Annabeth Chase is not a hero. 

This is okay, she tells herself. Not everyone can be a hero. 

Not everyone can make decisions on the fly, can solve tough choices and face their death with chin held high. 

And so she stands, slashing at a dummy in the training grounds, up and down and across again, and she reminds herself. 

Annabeth Chase is not a hero. 

"Are you okay?" 

She looks up. She can't remember the name of the new camper looking at her with curiosity in his eyes. Connor. Or Travis. Or something. 

She juts her chin up at him, tears and sweat mingling on her cheeks, lifting a sword that's much too heavy for her young arms. She points it at him. "What's it to you?" 

The kid throws up his hands, surrendering. "No need to get violent." 

Annabeth rolls her eyes. She turns back to the dummy. Up and down and across again. 

Annabeth Chase is not a hero, she tells herself. 

A hero would've been able to save her.

* * *

Annabeth Chase is not a hero. 

She thought she could be, now that she's on her first quest, face dirty and hair ratty, but now she's not sure. 

She's stuck with a satyr and a jackass of a companion, and she doesn't understand how he's supposed to be leading them. He just pushed Grover into the pool. They don't know what they're doing. 

Then again, neither does Annabeth. 

She just wants a single quest, one to go down in the history books, one that will be sung down through the generations. 

And now, she's twelve years old and using a hotel pool as a bathtub. She's scrubbing Medusa's ashes and her own blood off her hands. It's stained underneath her fingernails, a mix of black and gray and red. 

_ Look mom! I killed Medusa! I'm Perseus! _ She starts to scrub harder. _ Look dad! I killed Medusa! Aren't you glad I didn't bring her fucking head back to your perfect little stone fence, 2.5 kids life! _ She stops scrubbing. 

"Why are you crying?" Percy surfaces next to her. She startles and splashes him. He splashes her back. 

"I'm not crying," she protests. She will not touch her face. She will not think about her parents. 

"Okay." Percy shrugs. "Now, come on." He pulls on her hand. 

"I'm not getting in." 

He sticks her tongue out at her then falls back into the water. 

Immature jackass. 

But, at least he's named after a hero.

Annabeth doesn't even have that.

* * *

Annabeth Chase is not a hero.

She hates how she jumped at the chance for a second time to prove it. She hates how everyone told her she was one after last year. 

She's not a hero. 

She's not a hero, and it's because the tree is still standing at the edge of camp, watching over those who failed, Hermes' son is still gathering monsters to fight against the gods, and her mother and father still don't love her.

Whatever. 

It doesn't matter.

She's not even supposed to be here. None of them are. And now they're sailing towards almost certain death to try and rescue Grover and Clarisse, of all people. 

If her fatal flaw is hubris, she thinks, Percy's must be self-sacrifice. He's standing at the front (the helm? The bow? Annabeth still can't tell the terms apart) of the boat, hair that's much too grown out blowing in the wind. 

She should give him a haircut. 

* * *

Annabeth Chase is not a hero.

Annabeth Chase is not a hero. Annabeth Chase is not a hero. Annabeth Chase is not a hero. Annabeth Chase is not a hero. Annabeth Chase is AnnabethChase is AnnabethChaseAnnabethChaseAnnabethAnnabethAnnabethAn-

Annabeth Chase is in the worst pain she's ever been in. It's blinding, white-hot but still cold where the sky touches her back. Her spine is about to crack. Her knees are about to give way. Her eyes are permanently rolled back in her head. Any moment now she'll fall and the Earth will fall with her. 

Annabeth Chase is not a hero. Heroes would be able to do this easily, but Annabeth has no way to catch or prevent the tears that fall down her cheeks, carving trails through the dirt and dust that rain down on her with every shift of her weight. 

Would her father be proud of her? Is her mother watching her? Why aren't either of them coming to help? 

At least Percy's on his way. At least her friends know where she is. Maybe Artemis will come. Maybe Artemis- 

She almost wants to laugh. She's not a hero. A hero would face her eventual demise with her head held high, not with hope that her friends will come find her and most likely shortly after meet their certain deaths. 

A hero wouldn't sit here, seeing nothing, thoughts somehow blacked out and racing at once, helpless to the world around her.

* * *

Annabeth Chase is not a hero.

Things are bubbling, a mystery she can't quite put together, and every year a new piece is added. 

She's Athena's daughter, for gods' sake. If she can't put together a puzzle, what's the point? If she can't solve the Labyrinth, made by her goddamn brother, what's the point? If she has to rely on the most annoying mortal girl she's ever met, what's the point? 

Well, that's not true. She knows the point. The point is a better world. The point is saving the lives of her friends. The point is Luke's still out there not seeing straight and if he'd just fucking listen for once- 

Annabeth Chase may have done many heroic things, but she's not a hero. 

* * *

Annabeth Chase is dying. 

She can feel the wound in her side. She knows how much blood she's lost. She may be half-god, but she's half-mortal, too. Ambrosia can't fix everything. 

She sees blurred faces like patterns in the clouds above her, floating in and out of her gaze. Healers. Percy. Charon. Her mother, once. Healers.

No matter the face, she can't see it for longer than a moment before it's replaced, like fighting a Hydra of friends. 

At least she's dying for a cause, right? Heroes die for a cause, right? 

Annabeth Chase might be a hero. 

* * *

Annabeth Chase is a hero. They've emerged victorious, and the pain in her side has faded. Maybe she won't die, today. She hopes she gets a scar. 

Annabeth Chase is a hero. Her mother is there, smiling down at her. Her friends are by her side, Percy included, dirty and grimy and smiling and alive. 

Annabeth Chase is a hero. Thalia is no longer a tree. Her parents smile at her when they see her, now. Luke is free at last. 

But those things don't matter. Annabeth Chase is a hero. She's always been a hero. She's always been brave, and stood up for herself, and Thalia, and her parents, and Luke don't affect that. She's a hero on her own two feet.

Annabeth Chase is a hero.

It's just taken her years to accept it.


End file.
